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Editorial: Resolve To Stay Safe Through Holiday Season

Traffic already is crazy, and it’s going to get worse. From the busiest travel day of the year to the official kickoff of Christmas shopping insanity, which it seems will be Thursday this year, traffic is going to be a mess: more volume on the roads, more distracted driving.

We’ve always been distracted when we drive. We eat, we drink, we talk. Sometimes we get so busy talking that the drink falls and we reach over and … crash. We slow down to check out a store’s holiday shopping hours and … crash. We speed up to push a yellow light: crash. We expect the person in front of us to speed up to push a yellow light and he doesn’t: CRASH.

How many traffic mishaps could we prevent if we just paid full attention to the task of driving we are engaged in?

Now, of course, it is our electronics that distract us most dangerously when we drive. We text, we chat, we snap and send photos, we check our email, we scroll through our playlists, for heaven’s sake sometimes we surf the Internet.

In a report on distracted driving for NPR, Sonari Glinton cites Daniel McGehee, who studies vehicle safety at the University of Iowa. He calls emailing in the car the “trifecta of distraction” because it takes our eyes, hands and attention off the road.

He says we delude ourselves when we think its OK to glance at a device at a traffic light. Once we’re stopped and focused on an electronic device, we’re done paying attention to cars and pedestrians around us. It takes some time to shift mental gears and reorient ourselves. We might jerk forward before it’s safe. We might get rear-ended if we’re too slow to move.

There are so many temptations through the holiday season that can make driving unsafe, and so many things to remember. Don’t speed just because you’re double booked. Use your seat belt every time you get in the car. Never drink and drive.

Never, ever let the siren song of your electronic devices persuade you that “just a glance” is more important than your life.